More About the Political Crisis

Published:Put PravdyNo. 76, May 3, 1914.

      Published according to the text inPut Pravdy.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1972,

      Moscow,Volume 20,

      pages274-276.Translated:Bernard Isaacs and The Late Joe FinebergTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

Agood deal has already been said in the newspapers about
the famous Duma session of April 22 at Which all the Social-Democrats and
Trudoviks were
ejected.[1]However, the full implications of this event have not yet
been sufficiently explained.

Everypolitical crisis, whatever its outcome, is useful in that it
brings to light things that have been hidden, reveals the forces operating
in politics, exposes deception and self-deception, catch-phrases and
fictions, and affords striking demonstration of “things as they
are”, by forcibly driving them home.

Allthe democratic members of the Duma, both Social-Democrats and
Trudoviks, were suspended for fifteen sessions and ejected, most of them by
armed force. This was done in deference to those who, by taking measures
against Chkheidze, clearly revealed their “firm” intention of taking a
step (or rather, a dozen steps at once) towards the right. The Rights and
Octobrists,plus some of the Progressists, i.e., the bourgeois
liberals, who are in close, in fact, inseparable league with the Cadets,
voted for this ejection.

TheCadets abstained! This abstention by a party which claims to be
democratic admirably revealed—by no means for the first time—the true
nature of the Cadet gentry’s liberalism. The Fourth Duma prepares to expel
Chkheidze, then the other Social-Democrats, and then all the democrats, and
starts by suspending them, yet the “leaders” of the liberal oppositionabstain front voting! No matter how many gallons of ink the
liberals and Cadets may afterwards use up to invent sophisms and evasions
such as: we merely disapproved of the “form” of the Social-Democrats’
speeches,etc.—the crux of the matter will remain clear to anybody who does not
wish to deceive himself.

Abstainingfrom voting when Goremykin, Rodzyanko and their majority
expelled the democratic deputies actually implied tacit support, moral
approval and political endorsement of Goremykin and Rodzyanko and their
majority.

Onecannot agree with the point of view expressed by L. M. inSevernaya Rabochaya Gazeta, No. 61, who wrote that the “Duma
majority headed by the Octobrists have committed political suicide”. That
is the point of view of a Left liberal, not of a democrat, and certainly
not of a Social-Democrat.

TheDuma majority and the Octobrists have not committed suicide at
all. All of them are deliberate counter-revolutionaries, deliberate
participants in the June Third bloc and in the Stolypin system, deliberate
enemies of democracy. Since they recognise Goremykin as their political
leader, why is it suicide for them to follow this leader against their
class enemies, against the representatives of democracy, who are
notoriously hostile to the Octobrists?

Whatis the purpose of these turgid and utterly false phrases about
“suicide”? Such phrasesassumethat the Octobrists arenotthe enemies of democracy, i. e., assume something that is
disgustingly false. These phrases resemble the vulgar democratism of those
misguided Left Narodniks who often shouted that the Third and the Fourth
Duma were a “pasteboard” institution, a house of cards. The Octobrists’
vote for Goremykin, Maklakov and Shcheglovitov could have been considered
suicidal only if the Octobrists had expressed the “will of the
people”. Actually, however, they express the “will” of those
sections of the big bourgeoisie and the landlords which stand in mortal
fear of the people.

No,let us face the truth squarely. In politics that is always the best
and the only correct attitude.

Andthe truth is that the Duma events of April 22 shattered and killed
the remnants of constitutional and legalistic illusions. The
counter-revolutionary bloc of Purishkevich, Rodzyanko and the “Left”
Octobrists, plus a section of the Progressists, came out against democracy
bluntly,openly, determinedly, in soldier fashion (not in the metaphorical,
but in the literal sense of this last term, for soldiers were called into
the Duma). The counter-revolutionary liberals, Milyukov and Co.,abstained from voting. This could only have been expected after
all that has happened in the Third and the Fourth Duma, after all that
happened in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Well,the less self-deception there is, the better for the people. What
has the country gained from the Duma events of April 22? It has gained by
losing another particle of illusions that are detrimental to the cause of
freedom in this country.

[1]Atthe session of the Duma on April 22 (May 5), 1914, the Russian
Social-Democratic Labour group (the Bolshevik Six), the Social-Democratic
group (the Mensheviks) and the Trudoviks moved that the budget debates
should be adjourned pending the adoption of the Bill on the freedom of
speech for deputies.

Thismotion was defeated by a majority of the Duma. Thereupon the
Bolsheviks, Mensheviks and Trudoviks used obstructionist tactics during the
speech of Goremykin, Chairman of the Council of Ministers. Rodzyanko,
Chairman of the Duma, retorted by suspending all the Social-Democrats and
the Trudoviks from the Duma for fifteen sessions. In reply St. Petersburg
and Moscow workers held strikes of protest.